Madsen Holds Chip Lead After Day 1b of Borgata Open

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 by Ryan

Day 1a featured some big names near the top of the leaderboard, with quite a few underdogs coming in strong as well. Day 1b ended in the same direction, as there were a few well known players, and a few unknown players who held down the top 10 heading into Day 2. One player who is a fairly well known player who had a nice run, was Jeff Madsen, who finished at the top of the Day 1b leaderboard with an impressive 216,925 chips.

While there were some other big names who we will cover as well, the biggest story that came out of Day 1b from the World Poker Tour’s Borgata Poker Open was the impressive total number of entrants who ended up playing in the event. The final total came in at 1,313 players, which breaks the record for largest World Poker Tour event ever, which was originally 1,042 players; a number that was ironically set at last years’ Borgata Open. Since this $3,500 event is a re-entry event for any players who were eliminated on Day 1a, there was a total of 142 players who took advantage of the re-entry format on Day 1b.

While Madsen finished the day with the chip lead, and also the $5,000 bonus for finishing the first day with the chip lead; there were other big names that definitely need to be pointed out, such as Matt Affleck and David Williams, who both topped 150,000 chips by the end of the day. Affleck finished the day in 5th, while Williams close behind in 6th place on the top 10. Other names who topped the leaderboard were Marsha Wolak, who won the 2011 World Series of Poker Ladies’ Championship, and poker pro Mark Gregorich as well. Wolak ended the day with just over 138k in chips, and Gregorich wound up with $115k.

While there were an impressive 853 entrants into Day 1b, the day ended with only 558. Those 558 will now join the 245 players who moved on from Day 1a to form Day 2 which will end later today. The prize pool for this event has officially gone over $4 million in total, and this will give an incredible payout for first place of $922,441, with 100 out of the remaining 800+ making the money. All players who are able to make it to the final table of the Open will get win six-figure payouts as well.

There were a few other names who finished in the top 10 that were definitely worth mentioning, even though they aren’t as well-known as some of the big names listed above. Edgar Lemus-Argueta put together a strong day, and finished in second with 191,925 chips, and Dan Wach and Ronald Pease also helped round out the top 5 as both finished with over 150k in chips at the end of Day 1b. Players five through nine on the leaderboard are all fairly close to each other, as Matt Levin finished in 7th with 145,425 chips, and Kyle Burnside came in 9th place in chips with 124,425, and found himself right between Wolak and Gregorich on the leaderboard at the end of the day.